The Mozilla controversy suggests that the sexual revolution is getting ugly

Equality campaigners have stormed the Bastille. It would be tragic if they built new Bastilles in its place. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

If you’re reading this on Firefox, you can rest assured that your custom is not going towards any hateful, disgusting, evil people who might disagree with you on something.

Not now that Mozilla boss Brendan Eich has been forced to quit for supporting Proposition 8, the Californian bill opposing gay marriage. According to the BBC:

‘Mozilla’s executive chairwoman Mitchell Baker announced the decision in a blog post.

“Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it,” she wrote.

“We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves.

“We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.’

I find her words chilling. Eich did not, as far as I can find and I’m willing to be proved wrong, say anything inflammatory or hateful, he merely disagreed with some people on an issue, one that did not even exist as an idea before the millennium. It was ‘controversial’ only in the sense that the media-Left use the word, to mean ‘ideas we disagree with and therefore deem beyond the pale’ (likewise ‘divisive’, another weasel word employed to dull the mind into submission).

One of the most socially beneficial things about capitalism has always been its ability to reduce intolerance and bigotry by enabling people to trade with people unlike them. Voltaire famously wrote of the London Stock Exchange that:

‘Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith, and only apply the word infidel to people who go bankrupt. Here the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist and the Anglican accepts a promise from the Quaker.’

It is because of its socially liberalising effect that Fascists hate capitalism. Of course campaigners in the past have used financial muscle to affect social change; Quakers and other Christian radicals refused to eat sugar while that product was made on the back of slaves.

But those boycotts were aimed at removing a social evil; they were not designed to impoverish people with whom they disagreed. If we all stopped trading with people we didn’t agree with, the consequences would be catastrophic.

The Mozilla ‘controversy’ is an example of the sexual revolution reaching revolution’s ugly stage; equality campaigners have torn down the Bastille of homophobia only to build Bastilles of their own.

In Britain there have already been people suspended from their jobs for opposing gay marriage, including a man in Trafford who was thankfully supported by the ever-consistent Peter Tatchell. Then there was the incident in which police held a Christian preacher for 15 hours without food or water after he was reported by a pair of boys. Some might find the idea of two males kissing offensive; some might find the preacher’s views offensive; what offends me is how little respect these adolescents have for our hard-won rights to speak our mind, and that they’re backed by the law. They sound like those horrible little kids the Soviets indoctrinated into grassing on their parents for being insufficiently enthusiastic about socialism.

And then there was last week’s Question Time, in which poor Caroline Farrow, a Catholic blogger from Brighton, was booed and jeered for daring to have a different opinion, amid a very hostile atmosphere. There are good arguments for and against gay marriage, but the standard and tone of debate on that programme was so cretinous my immediate thought was ‘no wonder Athens only managed 60 years’.

People in Britain and America are gaining a rather novel positive right, one that lots of people feel proud of, while losing a far, far more important negative right – the freedom to express their opinion without fear of arrest or harassment.

Inner Circle is a dating club that capitalise on exactly this trend, styling itself as an “exclusive international community where single ambitious professionals with similar backgrounds and interests meet” – in other words a club for the well-heeled.

Malcolm Smith

There are good arguments for and against gay marriage,…

I’m afraid you’re wrong there. There are no good arguments in its favour. But at least I am not trying to get all those deluded people who support it sacked.

Jonathan Gress

It seems the behavior of Mozilla’s board was completely consistent with the principles of capitalism and the free market. Their chairman publicly espoused controversial views that could cost the company business, so they were quite justified in letting him go. At no point did the government intervene (as far as I know). Capitalism and democracy are not panaceas; even Tocqueville noted how conformist and intolerant of dissent the Americans were, even as they thrived under one of the most progressive and liberal political systems of the time.

Kimo

Here in America people are already losing their jobs and livelihoods for not endorsing homosexual “marriage.” Hopefully the next elections will reverse these trends and we can get laws enacted to protect people from homosexual bullying.

Liddell

The enshrinement of gay bigotry follows the general rule of democracies that the particular interests of specific minorities outweigh a more diffuse common good:

“Democracy is incompatible with liberty. It’s easy to get votes by promising more government: constituencies that benefit from government expansions, whether they’re would-be welfare beneficiaries, victimologists, or military contractors taking government money to make $219-million planes that don’t work, have motivation to vote in their self-interest—much more motivation than those who are harmed by those expansions have to vote against them, since the individual benefit of each beneficiary outweighs the individual detriment of each voter harmed. And once government is expanded, it’s notoriously hard to roll back: beneficiaries will defend the benefits they’re used to getting, and the bureaucrats hired as a result of the expansion will defend their jobs.”

Marriage is none of the State’s damn business. Anyone can marry anybody if they wish -they don’t need blessings from some bureaucrat. I also think it is perfectly ok for people to disapprove of others and even be rude to them. If that is outlawed, we are living under tyranny.

I’m not a religious person but merely object to those of faith being forced to marry people they instinctively feel don’t qualify for marriage. The young are never reminded that life has existed for a very long time and just because this issue has been discussed for ten years or so doesn’t make it inevitable. There has been a ridiculous rush to action on it and as it only affects about 1 percent of the population seems rather unimportant. They have their civil ceremony, why isnt it enough? Marriage should encompass the possibility of the natural act of procreation between those who are marrying. Children need a mother and a father. Any other option will lead to confusion and possibly ridicule for the child. Other children can be extremely cruel.

transponder

The tyranny of the majority, we are always warned about.

But hey: the minority can tyrannize, too. In fact, they mainly do. The powerful in Cuba: a minority. The psychotic tyrants of Iraq until the Western Coalition defeated it: a family minority. The Saudi powers: a minority. The North Korean dictators: a minority. I could go on but you get the picture.

And now we have a tiny — and it truly is tiny — minority of people trying to dictate to the rest of us what marriage is.

That is tyranny. And it needs to be stopped.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Nope. Majority in poll after poll support equal marriage. If you oppose it you’re in the minority.

Caldwell’s rather odd arguments weren’t even accepted by American conservatives, let alone anyone else. He seems to think it’s an elite driven movement. Well yes, to the extent that most social movements are. Neither Gandhi, nor Mandela, nor Pankhearst, nor Jefferson were exactly proletarian. But again this is the peculiar mindset that thinks homosexuality is confined to some Brideshead fantasy world. Working class people can be gay too you know, we just don’t get put on telly.

transponder

Did you actually read the article? Because your commentary suggests that you didn’t.

Caldwell scarcely even makes arguments: it’s a book review and a socio-political observation. And it’s correct.

the viceroy’s gin

It got voted down in state after state in the US, so your statement is clearly false.

I’ve been telling them that capitalism isn’t conservative but they don’t seem to want to believe it.

transponder

Capitalism is about freedom, and should be cherished for that fact. Very little else in human life champions freedom so strongly.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Everyone’s free to stay at the Ritz eh?

transponder

Since when was that EVER the point? You cannot have political freedom without free markets. Write out one hundred times.

And I’ll tell you — as you should know, if you’re a grown-up — that NO ONE stays at ‘the Ritz’ or local equivalent in a Communist regime except for the Boss and his cronies.

At least in capitalist freedom, we all get some sort of chance. And even if it’s not the Ritz, it’s the Lodge by Schroon Lake (before it burned down).

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Since truly free markets don’t exist, I can only conclude you believe that true political freedom does not exist.

And you seem to believe that I’m a communist which isn’t true, since communism can only come after the collapse of capitalism, which clearly has not come yet.

transponder

What about the blood? The people wanting freedom? Ticking me off for not-perfect freedom makes no sense when you would crush it underfoot.

Ever heard the phrase ‘Don’t make perfection the enemy of the good’?

Why do you want unfreedom?

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

I see that a certain brand of conservatives are discovering, for the first time, what it’s like when the money is on the other side.

Having preached for years the superiority of the market, the freedom for companies to hire and fire as they wish, and that our only means of social intercourse was through our wallets, they now find themselves facing the full might of those forces, and crying for help.

I hope this engenders a sense of empathy, and an appreciation of the importance of social structures outside the market.

transponder

Oh my lord what a load of rubbish.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

I assume this is filler while you think up some actual arguments.

transponder

I never write filler. I do know rubbish when I see it, though.

Jude Dornan

And yet you seem currently lost for cogent arguments as to why this is rubbish?

Amused by all the people expressing at great length their opinions that the lefty conspiracy means they are “not allowed” to express their opinions. As proof, you should let us know when the Stazi knock and then we can all help campaign for your release.

the viceroy’s gin

…the Stazi already knocked on that guy’s door, if you notice. It stuck its nose into his private affairs, illegitimately and illegally, and forced them into public discourse.

Jesus Actionfigure

“Brendan Eich has been forced to quit”

Untrue. He could have clung on.

What happened is people were not forced to work with this anti-gay bigot as their boss, and were not forced to do business with a company that saw fit to put him in charge.

Are you enough of a fascist to think people should be forced into such commercial relationships?

John Partridge

Factionalism is an ugly and illiberal brute. And while I’d rather none of this happened I find the whole affair quite poetic. Eich, in supporting prop 8 funded the exact same class of pressure group that toppled him.

To me liberty is the realm of the individual, not institutions that assume to act on behalf demographic groups, do away with minority group representation as a whole and no one can presume their beliefs can be held above others.

transponder

In politics, we must take sides. That’s what ‘partisan’ means. And politics is not the whole of a good life, but it can certainly be an honourable part of it — and I have no shame in saying that when it comes to politics, I know when I must take sides, and I only do so when there is a side to take.

You would have no politics at all, to judge by your comment. But politics is the ordering of human life and humans cannot live without it.

John Partridge

I can see how you may feel impelled to take a side, you’re losing. Despite not “losing” anything that we all haven’t lost. But look, taking a side in this drama is trivial. Whether you’re for Eich or the LGBT, you are on the same side, perpetuating an eternal conflict in opinion supremacy.

So what’s the point? If you were at-all faithful to the concept of liberty you’d recognize that a system where you can deem what is acceptable for me, is one in which I can deem what is acceptable for you.

The only real opposing argument here is that they are both wrong.

Daniel

OK Cupid is the website that launched this campaign against Mozilla. They’re a dating site and pride themselves on all the gay relationships they’ve helped create.

However, if you take a look at their website, you can only select “Male” or “Female” when creating your profile (whereas Facebook has fifty different gender choices!). No room for transgender people at the OK Cupid inn.

I demand a boycott on behalf of the LGBT community!!

kandanada

Hard-won freedom to speak our minds?

It is almost as if the State is our faith now. It would be religious intolerance to criticise it.

tolpuddle1

Gay Marriage is so stupefyingly insane and wrong, that many of us are too lost for words to oppose it.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Feel free to stay that way.

transponder

What’s at stake for you, Sam? Why — please do tell us — does the word ‘marriage’ mean so much to you? You have everything else!

transponder

Still no answer. Tick tock….

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

I have replied twice however he Spectator seems not to like my reply.

transponder

Happens to me all the time. Even when I try to trick-spell words: no dice. Most annoying.

tolpuddle1

Don’t worry, I won’t. Nor will anyone in like case.

wudyermucuss

Agree entirely.
But,as we all know,the mind can never be told what to think and feel and sense.
It is what it is for.

If it is considered good to live in a society where people must say one thing and think another,then we live in a good society.

Liz

And yet jeering at women in the street who haven’t even expressed an opinion and are just minding their own business is just something modern day feminists are getting “exercised about” instead of concentrating on the important social issues Victorians were campaigning about.

transponder

Well said and correct, Ed. Thanks for speaking truth to power!

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

This would be the Safari browser developed by Apple who have given material support to equal marriage campaigns and said they consider it a civil rights issue?

transponder

Yes, I see the problem and think that perhaps I ought to use Chrome. B–gger!

FrankS2

But they haven’t, as far as I know, hounded anyone who disagrees with it out of their job.

Forrest_Higgs

Jeered is one thing. Fired is quite another. How would have been if the majority of Californians who voted for Prop. 8 had started a campaign to get everyone who opposed Prop. 8 fired?

StephanieJCW

And what is wrong with Farrow being jeered? Ed you seem not to understand what free speech is. It does not mean people have to agree with what you say. They can also use their free speech to disagree / jeer / boo.

the viceroy’s gin

…blind to irony, are you?

Hugh_Oxford

“And what is wrong with Farrow being jeered?”

I welcome the jeering. And the spitting on her, which is what Ed failed to mention. I welcome anything that exposes the underlying violence of the denial of matrimony.

I happen to think that most people who support “same-sex marriage” aren’t bad people, they just totally misunderstand it. The sleeping giant that needs to be awakened to fight this legal monstrosity is every man and woman’s sense of identity as man and woman, as a person who is or may be a mother or a father, and was a girl and a boy, who may have sons or daughters. They need to understand that this legislation is about the denial and destruction of the male and female duality of existence.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

I very much identify as a man. So do the men I sleep with. So will the man I marry.

transponder

You can’t marry, Sam, unless it’s a girl. Law of the Universe, I’m afraid. Even if you never ‘sleep’ with her! (A euphemism I never had any time for. And I say that as one that has slept with my husband these past two decades, and I mean that truly and literally.)

StephanieJCW

It is not ‘catastrophic’ to refuse to trade with someone with whom you disagree. What an odd sentiment. There should be no compulsion in our trading habits.

If someone decides they would rather not trade with someone because of their views, that is their right in a free society.

Michele Keighley

But were there any repercussions evident? Or was the decision taken only on the presumption that there might be? Further if you are so keen on customers exercising ‘their right in as free society’ what about his right to his personal opinion about a contentious subject ‘in a free society’?

It appears from your comment that you are all for the former but decidedly against the latter. Or did I misread your intention?

StephanieJCW

You most certainly did misread my intention.

Ed, you and others seem to mistake free speech with consequence free speech.

People should not face legal censure for airing unpopular views (nor, if a regular employee, should they lose their job). But Ed seems to take issue with people making free choices about who they trade with. If I feel the values of a company’s CEO do not align with my own, or that he seeks to repress freedoms others are seeking, then it is logical I would vote with my wallet. I don’t see anything wrong with that.

And while those political donations were expressed in a private capacity, people may not feel like donating to such a person’s remuneration package through continued trade with the company.

Colonel Mustard

“Ed, you and others seem to mistake free speech with consequence free speech.”

Weasel words from the New Left which mean people can say what they like but if you don’t like it you will denounce them, bully them, picket their homes, boycott their businesses, expose their private correspondence and smear them on the internet. The modern version of the lynch mob with firebrands and pitchforks. And don’t pretend it is anything other than that.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

How dare you face social opprobrium when you use your economic power in socially destructive ways.

Colonel Mustard

“If someone decides they would rather not trade with someone because of their views, that is their right in a free society.”

Except in the case of a B&B owner deciding not to trade with a gay couple.

StephanieJCW

Hardly comparable.

They breached laws on the equal provision of goods and services. Inferior treatment of individuals. Consumers are not compelled, by law to shop with a particular company.

Interestingly I think the B&B owners should have been free to deny service to gay couples. But they should have to advertise that fact. To prevent gay couples turning up tired and ready to turn in for the night, suddenly finding they had to go elsewhere.

And also so that I never accidentally give such B&B owners my trade.

Simon Fay

If, as I understand it, the B&B owners allowed the gay couple to make their plans then pulled the rug most embarrassingly when they arrived in reception, this was very bad form. Am sorry the owners didn’t do the decent thing and the effing Law had to become involved.

Colonel Mustard

Absolutely comparable. Let me remind you what you wrote:-

“If someone decides they would rather not trade with someone because of their views, that is their right in a free society.”

Trade is a two way street. Your revision means “I want you to sell to me on my terms and I want to buy from you on my terms too”. The nonsense of which pretty much encapsulates you and your fellow travellers approach to the market. And the fact that bad law underpins it is no justification.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

The b&b owners agreed to trade with the gay couple. They accepted their reservation. They then refused to honour the agreement.

If they’d really been bothered, they could have said that they’d accidentally double booked, but would give them a twin room gratis. I doubt anyone would have caused a fuss. However, that would not have given the b&b owners the opportunity to parade their piety.

Clearly they never read Matthew 6.

the viceroy’s gin

Well, never fear, you fascists will likely force them to read it, eventually.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Indeed, our first plan is to make everyone read the Gospels.

the viceroy’s gin

…will that be before or after you send them to the concentration camps?

http://mrsdbliss.blogspot.com/ MrsDBliss

So you agree photographers should be allowed to refuse to photograph SSMs?

Tom Tom

Eich co-founded Mozilla and developed Javascript and now is hounded from his job by a hate campaign that is remiscient of how Jews made way for Aryans in business

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Because a very rich man losing his job for donating publicly to a campaign to rob his fellow citizens of their rights is exactly the same as Kristallnacht.

the viceroy’s gin

…yes, you fascists never change, as we know.

Sam Spade

can’t support fascist organizations, i’ll be looking for another browser, first microsoft explorer, google chrome, and now mozilla,…they’re falling like dominoes

Tom Tom

Why not use ixquick or safepage or duckduckgo

Conway

Aren’t they search engines rather than browsers?

monkey for sale

Mozilla is a business, and as head of a business Brendan Eich shouldn’t have views on marriage -full stop.At least not publicly.
For the people commenting on this blog can I just say that we gays are not made in a factory. It is not, and never has been gays V straights. Gays have parents, siblings, friends and neighbours who don’t won’t to seen them as second class citizens.
If Brendan Eich thinks that gays do not deserve equality fine., but did we need to hear it ?
If you don’t like same-sex marriage, don’t have one.

Tom Tom

Mozilla is NOT a business but a Foundation and Eich was allowed 10 days as CEO

monkey for sale

10 days too long.

Colonel Mustard

Why? Because he holds views that disagree with yours? And to think you lefties whine about McCarthy.

monkey for sale

Who said I was a lefty ? It’s about business, pure and simple. It was bad for business and he had to go.
If it came to light that the head of M&S had made a donation to an ant-abortion campaign then I’m sure public opinion would force him out.

Simon Fay

” It’s about business, pure and simple”

Yeah, right. Like a shop threatened with firebombing by UAF for stocking gollywogs.

“public opinion” = Queens and fag-hags on Twitter.

monkey for sale

You sound hysterical.
There was no threat, or even the suggestion of a threat of violence towards Brendan Eich.

Simon Fay

I’ve no idea if Eich himself received any threats but I dare say Mozilla caved in to pre-empt the kind of full-on social-media campaign beloved of papers like ‘Metro’.

the viceroy’s gin

…over the years, that Prop 8 business has caused many, many threats of violence in California, mostly from the fascist Left. That’s one of the reasons individual and private speech and thought isn’t to be illegitimately (illegally?) introduced to public argument. It will inevitably result in such criminality.

Simon Fay

My head still spins to think of the long years being warned about the tyranny domiciled in the Eastern Bloc, and how it has been upgraded in those states that were most vociferous in their warnings.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Because the people attempting to subvert the constitution to codify their hatred into law are the real victims here, and no gay people are ever attacked, or thrown out of their homes, or driven to suicide because of exactly the kind of hatred the supporters of Prop 8 whip up.

transponder

Prop 8 isn’t about hatred.

Why do you think that supporting marriage as what it’s always been is about hatred? I for one clearly don’t hate you yet I support Prop 8 and think that ‘gay marriage’ is a farce (which will not last, by the way).

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Prop 8 didn’t support marriage, it attempted to change the Californian constitution to exclude people who the Mormon Church dislike from the institution

the viceroy’s gin

No, I don’t believe that amendment mentioned anything about a religion in general or specific, lad. So your statement is false.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

It attempted to exclude people from the institution of marriage.
The people it attempted to exclude were a group the Mormon Church dislike, to the extent they raised and spend millions of dollars to exclude them.

The statement is therefore true.

the viceroy’s gin

Again, the amendment mentioned had nothing to do with religion in general or specific, lad. So your statement was and is still false . It will be forever so, which is true of falsities.

the viceroy’s gin

Not understanding how you fantasize the Constitution is being “subverted”, unless it’s by those inventing homosexual marriage as a Constitutional right. Explain yourself.

The criminal actions you describe are already against the law, lad.

Colonel Mustard

Familiarise yourself with the elements of assault and battery in Common Law. What UAF did to Farage in Scotland was an assault. The lack of understanding and enforcement of that by the cretins who now mismanage our justice system does not negate the offence.

transponder

No, they just made him lose his job and made him look like ‘toxic goods’ for future hires. Do you actually have a brain or is there just a little hamster in there with a rusty wheel?

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Mr Eich need never work another day in his life if he chooses, he’s hardly living pay check to pay check.

However, even if he were, his minor inconvenience doesn’t really compare to, say, being tied to a fence and beaten to death like Matthew Shepard

transponder

What does M. Shepard have to do with Eich? You want Eich to be the whipping boy for Shepard? That’s not justice, is it? Eich is no more guilty of what happened to Shepard or others like him than I am. Do you ever fear doing injustice — being as bad as those you condemn as monsters? Never harm the innocent, Sam. Never. And know who the innocent ARE.

Incidentally, what does ‘marriage’ between homosexuals have to do with this?

What exactly do you want? The people should be told.

Colonel Mustard

Of course you are a lefty. Only lefties engage in vituperative campaigns to denounce people for expressing their opinions. And only lefties believe that hounding people from their jobs because of those opinions is justified.

Your M&S example just confirms it and demonstrates what an intolerant bigot you are. ‘Public opinion’ these days usually means the marshalling of a vociferous and hysterical lefty mob who presume to represent public opinion and where the word ‘outrage’ is over utilised. An arrogance no doubt encouraged by Blair’s ridiculous but sinister statement that the Labour party is nothing less than the political wing of the British people as a whole.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Righties believe you work at the pleasure of your employer, and would defend him sacking you on whatever basis he chose.

Strangely enough it’s only when people organise to fight back against the economic totalitarianism of the moneyed elite that the bleating about victimisation starts.

Doubly sad of course that in this particular case the righties find the money and the people against them.

the viceroy’s gin

…actually, no, lad… that’s false. The people who oppose you lefty fascists in this case are often if not always the majority.

Daniel

Only half the UK population are happy with the abortion laws as they are. Why should they dictate who gets to be boss of M&S?

Flintshire Ian

The usual minority activist response. We have to be tolerant of them but they don’t have to be tolerant of anyone who doesn’t share their views.

the viceroy’s gin

You’re right, he shouldn’t have views stated publicly, and there’s no evidence he did. Somebody stuck their nose in his private affairs, and political contributions are or should be private affairs. Soon, you lefties will have the Stasi reporting on all of us and what we do, no doubt .

The original Mr. X

He didn’t have any “public” views. He made a private contribution to a political campaign, the donors of which were then (illegally) made public by the IRS.

Common Sense ✟ كافر

Clegg loves modern “diverse” Britian. Where would we be without the FGM, Terrorism, Islamist bigotry, ghettos, lack of spoken English in our cities, black on black gun crime, riots, Mosques, and Muslim pedophile gangs raping white English girls across the country???

Raw England

In a very happy, very rich and very advanced White Paradise.

Curnonsky

Isn’t it strange that in 2008, when the offending donation to Prop 8 was made, a certain Barack Obama also publicly proclaimed his opposition to gay marriage? Will he also be resigning soon?

https://belasariust.wordpress.com/ solly gratia

So, given that we in the UK have already been warned that Christians in business, and others of any or no religion, who choose not to support an ssm event, such as a photographer being asked to turn up, or a baker asked to make a cake, will likely face prosecution now that ssm is law, how does this stand up as anything but wishful thinking, the kind of wishful thinking some on the right have engaged in for a decade because ‘we’ve got to be nice to them haven’t we’. Well, they are not being nice, and never were.
We who have spoken up come what may, have been saying that this would happen for years, ever since the gay lobby made their empty ‘promise’ that having attained civil partnerships, they didn’t need to go further (a fact being hastily denied in their soviet style re-writing of history).
This is already happening in the UK, as you pointed out, and will get worse. The horse has bolted, pandora’s box is open, the worms are out of the can.

Hugh_Oxford

It’s not really the gay lobby, it’s the gender lobby. The gay lobby are a tiny percent of a tiny percent.

StephanieJCW

And what is this ‘gender lobby’ exactly?

Colonel Mustard

You I should think, judging by your misandrist comments here.

wudyermucuss

Possibly those who deny gender difference?
Of a physical,emotional,psychological nature.
Vive la difference I say.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

I like difference, hence why the idea of little girls being crammed into pink princess boxes while boys are told showing compassion or empathy is a sign of weakness upsets me.

transponder

You’re a weak thinker on stilts and live in a fantasy land. Which boys, where, are told in the West that showing compassion or empathy is a sign of weakness? Helllllooo? Reality check?

Never mind that Jean-Jacques Rousseau took ‘pity’ (updated in our time to ‘empathy’ or ‘compassion’) as a major theme.

Our world is brought low by people that don’t even understand what it is.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Because the phrase ‘boys don’t cry’ is unknown in English, and there is no cultural bias against men who might want to go into caring fields, which is why there are so many men in primary education, or social care, and why no young lad who said he wanted to be a stay-at-home dad would get the mick taken out of him endlessly.

Colonel Mustard

Strange world you inhabit. Is it called the Land of Hyperbole?

Hugh_Oxford

The problem with marriage redefinition, and what makes it so very frightening, is that as a proposition it is entirely fallacious. It is so facile, so specious, so transparently meretricious, that its proponents must be absolutely terrified.

Of course marriage is the sanctioning and recognition of the biological unions of men and women. Of course marriage is the way human societies order and structure mating, motherhood and procreation. Of course marriage – matrimony – concerns the maternal state. Of course the state doesn’t actually “marry” people. Or course marriage is only legally recognised because biological marriage has human products – mothers and infants – who have rights and needs that the law should protect. Of course marriage is inextricably “gendered”, of course it’s unique and distinct characteristic is sexual. Anyone with more than three neurons firing and five minutes to spare, from an Anatolian peasant to a Bedouin tribesman, from an Inuit hunter to an Indian housewife knows what marriage is and what it does.

Even in our confused, disordered, atrophying, ageing, childless and atomised post sex-rev corner of the world, pretty much everyone knows what marriage is.

Lies can ONLY be defended by force, by coercion, by intimidation and by threats to liberty, even moreso when the liars actually know they are lying. David Cameron knows what marriage is. Nick Clegg knows what marriage is. Every single person in the Upper and Lower houses of parliament knows what marriage is.

That’s why there’s nothing more they can do than sack, spit and silence.

ButcombeMan

Well they did not silence you. Well done. My views exactly. Just one of the reasons I will never vote for Cameron again.

StephanieJCW

Matrimony does not contain the ‘maternal state’. Marriage does not require motherhood and motherhood does not require marriage.

And once again the insinuation that marriage is oh so important for women, but not that much for men.

the viceroy’s gin

I believe you’ll find he stated that matrimony “concerns” the maternal state, which is quite different than the distortion of your first paragraph.

I’ll leave you and the imaginings of your second paragraph to be dealt with as part of your own pathology.

wudyermucuss

I think the number of men who dream of their wedding suit is very small,probably non existent.
Men and women are different,I’m sure you’ll agree?

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Social conditioning of boys and girls into their gender roles is very powerful indeed. Or is it your contention that a liking for white lace comes pre-programmed with two X chromosomes?

transponder

Samuel, you need to stop drinking the Flavor-Aid: it’s truly addling your mind. Try to think as a human being instead of a fully paid-up member of a grievance group. It will be better for all of us if you do.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

So you do think that the liking some women have for the trappings of a wedding is genetically programmed? Because otherwise it’s a social construct isn’t it?

transponder

No darling, I think you’ve got bamboozled by the lace and fragrant bouquets (not that I had any, but never mind). It’s about procreation, just a hint.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

The original comment I responded to did not mention procreation at all. It mentioned little girls thinking of their wedding dresses. A social construct.

Colonel Mustard

Tripe.

disqus_KdiRmsUO4U

Apparently its a statistical fact that married men describe themselves as being happier than singletons so you women do have your uses. hehehehehe

I wish you wouldn’t make so much noise when giving birth.
Most upsetting to all men of sensitivity. ! You pull such ‘orrible faces as well.

tolpuddle1

Marriage without motherhood is dead; motherhood without marriage is – unwise.

John Clegg

Agree 100%. I only wish that I could express myself as well as you. Thank you.

Dan Grover

I have no problem with the way this has gone down at all. It was a particularly free-market result. There was no government pressure. No one was threatened with legal repercussions – it was just a vocal customer based “voting with their wallet”. That’s the way it should be. And hotels should be free to refuse to serve whoever they like, and should likewise be responsible for the repercussions of their decision, just like Mozilla was.

Simon Fay

Sounds like you quite relish the prospect of the leftist boot being stuck into those repercussive hotels.
Then again, I dare say a lynch-mob is your idea of a small demanding ethics-driven market.

Dan Grover

Why not? It’s up to the customers to decide what they value. If they value price to an absolute degree then the morality of the shop-keepers (or hoteliers or Browser CEO’s) is an irrelevancy, but if you’d rather not provide those with whom you disagree with custom, that’s also your right as a customer. What part of this isn’t indicative of a free market?

Simon Fay

One suspects you’d be less ready to invoke such consumer prerogatives had Mr Eich funded a campaign to harass “the Right”. I agree we should rightly be able to shop where we choose – that this guy’s political choice has been deemed so significant in that respect as to see him ousted sounds more like Mozilla’s bowing to the Twitter-account-holding Red Guards.

In Eich’s case, the problem isn’t so much that he said “anything inflammatory or hateful,” or simply that his views are too conservative, but the fact that he made a large financial contribution to Proposition 8. Is Ed West suggesting that Eich’s right to vote with his wallet doesn’t extend to his customers and employees?

Consumers who oppose not only a CEO’s views but his practices are well within their rights to boycott that company, and the company in turn is right to be concerned about how that affects their market-share. When a company selects a CEO, one of the things they need to look for is whether or not that person’s ethos is compatible with the company’s. Mozilla failed to do that and have consequently alienated a large portion of their consumer base, as well as many of their employees.

This situation is more analagous to consumers boycotting GAP or McDonalds until they implement better working conditions than it is to the examples West gives, which are, frankly, despicable. But Eich will not be “impoverished” by this. If Ed West has a point, it isn’t supported by a CEO stepping down from leading a company run on principles he doesn’t share. Inspiring an attitude of partisan victimisation in the comments is about all this blog post is good for.

GUBU

I would suggest that your analogy is wrong.

This is not about something Mr Eich did in a professional capacity, or something that Mozilla as an organization did under his direction, which might be comparable with the business practices of GAP or McDonald’s.

It is about a donation he made in a private capacity to a political campaign.

Imagine a scenario where you did not get a job because the panel who interviewed you ignored your employment history, qualifications and skills and focused instead on your political or religious views, which they disagreed with.

Would you be happy with that outcome?

Colonel Mustard

“Imagine a scenario where you did not get a job because the panel who interviewed you ignored your employment history, qualifications and skills and focused instead on your political or religious views, which they disagreed with.”

Or where the Social Services (SS) took away your adopted children because you were a member of UKIP.

It is already happening.

chxxlie

I agree with you on my analogy, but here’s why I consider the other examples West provided as irrelevent to the Eich case:

First of all, how I’d feel if I didn’t get a job based on my political or religious views isn’t black and white. It depends on factors such as how much I needed the job and how strongly I held my beliefs. I hold, as many do, a set of core principles that I would prioritise over immediate employment and know any long-term career prospects would need to align with these. I’m very fortunate to be in a position to make such choices. Some people aren’t. Mr Eich certainly is.

The CEO is the face and spokesperson of a company. They embody its ethos. That’s part of the job. Companies are political entities and Eich’s actions, whether private or otherwise, reflect on Mozilla as a company, much like a priest’s on their church or parish.

If Mr Eich doesn’t know this then he shouldn’t be in charge of a company anyway. The CEO is chief-risktaker — that’s what they’re paid for — and Eich weighed his job against his principles here, prioritising the latter. (Yes, it was before he became CEO, but he must’ve been already aware of that possibility). I have enormous respect for those willing to take such risks, but in this case his conflicted with what a considerable number of Mozilla’s employees and customers expect from the company. He wasn’t appropriate for THAT role. (Note his employment wasn’t in question despite the controversy BEFORE he became CEO.)

Within that political entitiy, Eich was, in a sense, voted out. Bias is a fact of life. This affects both the Left and the Right, and each only speak up when one of their own suffers it. It’s this partisan mentality that results in issues such as these. Liberalism, upon which many here are zealously laying the blame, is just the left half of the problem.

Colonel Mustard

“This affects both the Left and the Right, and each only speak up when one of their own suffers it. It’s this partisan mentality that results in issues such as these. Liberalism, upon which many here are zealously laying the blame, is just the left half of the problem.”

Simply not true. The dominating ‘narrative’ in Britain is now left wing and most of its sources are unelected, for example in the case of the BBC, the quangocracy and the fake charity industry. If right wing views are represented at all it is usually in the form of caricature and vilification.

chxxlie

Then the Left come along bemoaning how Britain’s highest-circulating newspapers are all right-wing (or at least right-leaning.) And of course wherever the dogmatic Right win favour it’s equally as imposed or coerced.

Victimisation isn’t flattering on either side.

Colonel Mustard

“And of course wherever the dogmatic Right win favour it’s equally as imposed or coerced.”

One of the most stupid statements I’ve read. Please give an example of exactly where the “dogmatic Right” have won “favour”.

GUBU

I’m glad you would be perfectly happy, in some circumstances, for a potential employer to discriminate against you on the grounds of your political or religious views. What about your ethnicity or gender? Would that bother you? Or would you shrug away those particular biases as simply a fact of life?

I sense you are still missing Mr West’s point.

He was not suggesting that the other cases were analogous to Mr Eich’s. Rather, he was using them to illustrate a broader point, which is that those who talk about equality, diversity and tolerance do not necessarily practice what they preach when it comes to those who do not agree with their particular views.

As far as that broader point is concerned, you have yet to put a single dent in his argument.

chxxlie

“As far as that broader point is concerned, you have yet to put a single dent in his argument.”

My point is merely that the Eich case is a poor example of discrimination on political grounds. Not the argument as a whole. The problem is a conflict of rights. Eich’s right to private matters not to affect his career, and a consumer’s right to base a purchase on the ethics of its suppliers. Nobody’s judging the potential repercussions of a purchase on the views of its lower employees. A CEO is different. I’ve already gone into why.

Gender and race are different because they are unmalleable factors with no reason to ever affect business practice OTHER than in a sexist or racist working environment. Gender and race cannot be perceived as a choice, and therefore cannot be considered either correct or incorrect. Political views can.

the viceroy’s gin

“Gender and race cannot be perceived as a choice, and therefore cannot be considered either correct or incorrect. Political views can.”

.

Thank you for acknowledging your adherence to the decayed dogma of political correctness. It explains much.

Notice that now that your wretched dogma has taken control of what can be publicly said and thought by individuals, it is now moving on to controlling corporations, as is the historical pattern for you types.

You above implied that you consider yourself a “liberal”. You are nothing like a liberal, lad.

Simon Fay

The “Liberalism” of today seems more a sort of double-jointed socialism with opt-out clauses for its upholders.

chxxlie

So you think race and gender are choices? Please elaborate. Your point was lost in the rhetoric.

the viceroy’s gin

Sorry, but the point is well founded, your strawman notwithstanding.

You are not a liberal, lad.

Colonel Mustard

Clever use of words. But race is distinct from a racial agenda, which is about choice, and gender from a gender agenda, which is also about choice.

And I agree with others the term ‘Liberal-Left’ in post-Blair Britain is an oxymoron. We should not use it. You are the Authoritarian-Left and some of you are even the Fascist-Left.

Tom Allalone

And religious views? Presumably you’re OK with a company refusing to employ Muslims on the grounds female customers might find their misogynistic religion off putting?

the viceroy’s gin

Yes, there are so many tails to this hysterical purge… this obscene squelching of thought and speech. I doubt the rabid Left understands the full implications of their flailing here.

chxxlie

It depends. Not all of those identifying as Muslim believe in precisely the same things. If an individual’s views are so at odds with the ethos of the company that it’s likely to affect performance then I don’t see why it should be a problem.

the viceroy’s gin

…but they would have contributed cash to the mosque. According to you, that means they are to be purged from their positions.

James

He wasn’t CEO when he made the donation.
He made the donation in 2008 (when Obama was still agaisnt gay marriage btw), he was named CEO in 2014.

Peter Harrison

“he made a large financial contribution to Proposition 8″
Or, more precisely, he made a small financial contribution ($1,000) to Proposition 8 in 2008. And are you seriously suggesting that this means people have the right to hound him out of any job he ever does in future?

chxxlie

I’ve misread the figure as larger then.

“are you seriously suggesting that this means people have the right to hound him out of any job he ever does in future?”

They DO have the right to withdraw their custom and support from any company or individual over political concerns.

2008 is still recent and Prop 8 considered to be a huge setback for a lot of people. Nevertheless, I’d bet there are still quite a few companies that would be happy to hire Eich.

James

“They DO have the right to withdraw their custom and support from any company or individual over political concerns.”

Withdrawing custom is one thing. Mozilla’s browser is most popular in the developing world and with the open source crowd. If you don’t know why that is, that’s because it’s 100% free and open source.

I have read many of the angry tweets calling for his head on a stake, I don’t think any of them knew what Mozilla actually was, let alone used any of their software.

It’s also amusing to note that Eich developed JavaScript in the 90′s. Java being the primary language used in Disqus/Twitter and all of the social media platforms where everyone was calling for him to be boycotted. Quite amusing.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Almost as amusing as Turing making a tremendous contribution to the preservation of Britain and then that same nation driving him to suicide eh?

the viceroy’s gin

…always the victimization, eh lad?

transponder

Yep: always the sense of grievance, never any gratitude. And nothing we grant them or give away will ever be enough. Grievance of this kind is an insatiable beast, a blackmailer.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

My equality isn’t some Danegeld I’m extorting, it’s my right as a citizen of this civilisation.

the viceroy’s gin

Yes, you have the same rights as everyone else, but not “rights” that you fantasize, lad.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

The demos determines rights and it has decided to extend me this one. My commiserations on being in the minority. I hope it gives you some empathy for future situations, rather than adding to the trove of bitterness that came from not enough affection as a child. Stay strong darling. X

the viceroy’s gin

What a strange post .

Not at all understandable, and overly familiar. But most fantasies are like that.

Tom Tom

In time the wheel will turn and then…..

Tom Tom

Is Mozilla Foundation similar to McDonalds ?

StephanieJCW

Quite.

Ed’s insinuation that consumers shouldn’t voth with their wallet is bizarre. And contradictory seeing as he supported the Mozilla CEO for doing just that.

the viceroy’s gin

…yes, and hopefully we’ll soon be able to find out how people have actually voted, as you say, so we can hound them mercilessly about all of their politics. That’s perfectly valid, as you say.

Simon Fay

And in the light of phenomena such as we are commenting on, only kept out of play by technical limitations…for now. All electronic/online voting would be ideal for this lot.

The Laughing Cavalier

We have not had free speech for some time now. Only speech permitted by the so called liberal left is allowed. Progressive? Not a chance. As usual, NuLabour bears a lot of the responsibility for this illiberal state of affairs..

Colonel Mustard

They are not the ‘Liberal’ Left. They are authoritarian if not fascist and it is getting worse because at taxpayers expense they are coercing Parliament to pass bad law.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

I take it you preferred the state of affairs when moral guardians could have editors prosecuted for publishing poems? Whitehouse v Lemon anyone?

transponder

Total distraction and irrelevant to the question in hand. Look, a squirrel!

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Those who say free speech is disappearing need to explain why the blasphemy act was not a restriction on free speech.

transponder

What blasphemy act was that, Sam? Did it involve an object and somebody looking the other way? It probably DID restrict free speech, but I do find that heights of passion have that effect.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

We are not less free as a society in terms of what we can say, it’s simply that the taboos have shifted, and people who grew up under the previous paradigm have, in some cases, not yet adapted.

transponder

Of course we are less free. Of course we are. You feed the alligator his rice and chicken because that’s what he likes today. But when he changes his mind and it’s cormorant he wants, where will you be?

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

I do not view the demos as an alligator.

transponder

All right, then: a crocodile.

Jez

I think it’s great (over here anyway).

All the people that have sought relentlessly to undermine and fracture our society since the second world war have now set themselves on a thousand mile an hour crash course with two of the strongest and most expanding populations brought here.

The Islamic populations, set firmly in a religion unchanged since the 7th Century and African populations immersed in machismo and in many cases, an alleged strong undercurrent of homo-phobia.

I’ve said it before, unlike bullying the Village Church with little elderly ladies enjoying a cup of tea and a slice of cake into oblivion for hate crimes, let’s see how hard these liberal enforcers are when they demand the first gay couple to walk hand in hand down the isle at Finsbury Park Mosque.

I’ll enjoy watching that.

wudyermucuss

Agreed.
The Leftist-Islamist courtship has been a long one.
As it must be,for,it can never be consummated,for it would lead immediately to extreme domestic violence,and a very hostile and bloody divorce.
It is,like both the suitors ideologies,a permafantasy,which,one suspects,they know on some level can never be realized.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Not really. Radical Islamism is largely a creation of American foreign policy, not least it’s ardent protection of the Saudi dictatorship, against any socialist movement that could lead to a pan-Arab state controlling the region’s petrochemicals. The links in Britain mostly came through the Stop the War movement from 2002 onwards, specifically between the SWP and the MCB, but the collapse of the SWP over the last couple of years have put pay to much of that.

Colonel Mustard

Tripe.

transponder

The man has no connection with reality. The irrationality of so many people is really scary.

disqus_KdiRmsUO4U

re Islam. It is perfectly obvious that most spokes persons are biding their time over the homosexual issue.
Choudry did make a very amusing comment re Members of Parliament.
Cant post it due to censorship.
Believe me it exists here too lol

Voltaire said something along the lines of beware those you cant criticise
Albert Steptoe said homosexuality would soon be compulsory and described ballet as pouff’s football.
There I said something bad.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

You realise how tragic it was for Wilfred Bramble to have to say that line?

disqus_KdiRmsUO4U

When I posted Albert Steptoe’s comment (Galton/Simpson the authors) I thought it was a good joke.
I still think that.
Bramble’s personal life was a tragedy.

I am quite old and was brought up in less ‘touchy feely’ times.
A bit of robust ridicule is no bad thing.

Prior to the rise of Islam in the UK the trendies regularly lambasted Christianity in a most vicious and sometimes degenerate way.
See also the vile criticism directed at Mary Whitehouse.

Sanctimony is regularly displayed by types who think like you !

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Actually I’m glad that Ms Whitehouse led a long and full life. It gave her time to see Queer as Folk come on the telly.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Despite what they would have you believe now, the ecclesiarchy that claim to speak for the carpenter from Nazareth weren’t always nice, as demonstrated when we look to those societies where they still have any sort of cultural power.

I also have to love the conservative taxonomy that seems to only be able to conceive of a gay man as Mr Humphries. There are gay lads and lasses in those ‘Islamic’ and ‘African’ communities too, and damned right they should be empowered against the cultural gatekeepers too.

the viceroy’s gin

…let’s see how “empowered” you are when the islamofascists come for you, lad.

transponder

That’s what, in their ingratitude, they fail to see. That this is the best they have ever — ALL of us have ever — had it. If they/we want further perfection, we should look to ourselves and our own characters. Western Civ., as you know and I know, is not something that can be assaulted endlessly without consequence.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

And again, Western Civilisation has nothing to do with the Abrahamic cult you’re citing.

No need for you to include the rest of us in your deviant fantasies, lad.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Ah, I seem to have struck the nerve. Don’t worry darling, it wasn’t your fault. Just let the bitterness go. *hugs*

the viceroy’s gin

No need for you to fantasize about me personally, lad, much like there’s no need for you to include the rest of us in your deviant fantasies. It’s not healthy for you, whether you know it or not.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Go make yourself a nice cup of tea and give yourself some ‘me time’ ginny. We’ll all be here for you when you get back. X

the viceroy’s gin

…seriously, it’s not healthy for you to fantasize about strangers on the internet, lad.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Shhh, it’s ok Ginny, it’s ok. X

the viceroy’s gin

…but oftentimes, it seems folks like you tend towards a peculiar overfamiliarity to strangers. It’s not healthy, lad.

David Prentice

Gays should beware. Their intolerance of negative opinions is providing popular culture cover for a much more dangerous threat: criticism of Islam is also now verboten. People should be free to speak their minds about gay marriage and Islamic practices such as FGM. But they’re not. This is a problem.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Because two adults signing a legal contract is exactly like the mutilation of little girls with broken glass.

transponder

I suggest you stop taking the easy moralizing route and pay attention to what’s really at stake. Once Western Civ. goes, you will have no one to champion you. Stop biting the hand etc.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Western Civilisation is founded upon the ideals of the Enlightenment, not the ravings of Bronze Age desert dwellers.

transponder

Yes, Sam. I think you’ll find that I for one am not a Bronze Age denizen of either desert or forest.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Good. Then don’t say that my choices are accepting a lower class of citizenship or being thrown off a mountain, because I believe there are other options.

transponder

You’ve just said elsewhere that you’re a socialist. Which means that you approve of Che Guevara, the Vietnam War as waged by the Viet Gong, the existing island prison of Cuba, the tyrannizing over the people of Venezuela…and the list goes sickeningly on.

Socialism in its concentrated, ultimate-logic form (Communism) killed about 100 million people in the 20th century. And those it didn’t kill, it maimed, crushed, made mad.

Not a mindset/delusion I’d want to be associated with, myself.

I care about justice.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

You’ve said you’re a classical liberal, that means you approve of the continuous export of food from Ireland during the Famine under the notion of ‘free trade’ and the refusal of the government to help. You are therefore complicit in the deaths of a million people, and the displacement of a million more.

Gee, this is fun.

transponder

No, you don’t get to accuse me of crimes I haven’t committed. So not fun: sorry about that.

I’m a classical liberal because I’m a child of the British Enlightenment and I believe in responsible self-government, aka freedom.

Colonel Mustard

Ignore him. He only posts comments to start arguments.

transponder

Thanks for the tip.

Kitty MLB

You wouldn’t know this ‘ being new here’ and all that.. transparent…Oh sorry ! .transponder I will get it right eventually
but the Colonel is a good egg and one must take his excellent advice . Do give my love to pedestrianblogger when he delightfully turns up.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Your fear of open discourse demonstrates a clear lack of faith in your own belief structure.

Kitty MLB

‘ I am a child of the British Enlightenment’
S, you do seem to be telling rip with this new
incarnation, my dear.Agree with what you say
about freedom, and small government.
Maybe if we did the same as you do in the
US ( two terms only) it would save us
from leftie dictators like bonkers Blair.
I might change my name also…
but I am not too sure what would suit me.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Clearly your irony alarm is broken.

Kitty MLB

It’s transpired to me that transponder is transmitting her thespian talents through out this thread.
You said before that Western Civilization will go if Gays marry-
No it will not. I have run out of the letter t so I shall go..
But please help us deal with telemachus

the viceroy’s gin

It is if lefty fascists like you force it upon us.

Kitty MLB

What the devil has the islamic terror and a few who
follow a creed of hatred have to do with two gay people
who love each other and wish to marry. Getting on with
their own private lives and not hurting anyone.

Tony_E

We must all hold the approved views of the state, or the dogs will be unleashed against us.

No opposition to the consensus will be allowed.

Tom Tom

It is called Gleichschaltung…..

Phil Rowlands

Gleichschaltung — sums it up well

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

That the state no longer subsidises your bigotry is not itself an act of persecution.

transponder

I’m afraid that you’re the bigot, Samuel — if you can even define the word.

You want to quash anything that is not to your way of thinking: you want to quash what is not yours. Marriage is not yours. Sorry about that, but c’est la vie.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Marriage is a legal contract, defined by the demos. The demos have defined it as applying to same-sex couples. Sorry about that, but that’s life darling.

transponder

Oh my god, I got called darling on the Spectator blog!! Smelling salts. Back in a min.

dado_trunking

Society will become self-policing. There is no need for an NS&A.

the viceroy’s gin

…you and the goat will fit right in.

Jambo25

We now live in the time of the Church of the Holy Gay Man. No disapproval or reservations of anything they do will be permitted

Barakzai

PC-ness now requires anything and everything to be ‘improved’ through legislative ‘equalisation,’ which is synonymous of course, with ‘social justice’ in contemporary liberal Newspeak. I heard one of last week’s newly married same-sexers (I’d better not use any other word) inform the Today programme’s listeners that ‘change is improvement.’

http://english-pensioner.blogspot.co.uk/ english_pensioner

I will use Google Chrome in future; it is said to be more secure anyway.

GnosticBrian

Yes, support the tax avoiders!

http://english-pensioner.blogspot.co.uk/ english_pensioner

I’d rather that than patronising a company staffed with bigots who force out someone who holds contrary views.

GnosticBrian

Your EVIDENCE for believing that ALL of the staff of Mozilla are “bigots” (that is to say hold contrary views to you, oh wise one) and NONE of the staff of Google, is?

http://english-pensioner.blogspot.co.uk/ english_pensioner

A bigot is someone who declines to accept that there is an alternative point of view, not someone who simply disagrees.
Sufficient staff, not necessarily all, forced the resignation of someone who held views contrary to their own. Whether Google are any better, I’ve no idea.

GnosticBrian

So no EVIDENCE.

Tom Tom

It has no doubt sensitive homosexuals at work somewhere in its coding passages

Magnolia

Superb piece.
I noticed it in the Farage/Clegg debate where Mr Clegg made so much of being proud of ‘modern Britain’ while only really meaning the left, liberal, so-called progressive kind of Britain where mums work, infants are farmed and everyone is the same in terms of their s*x.
The left need to take care because they think they’ve won and they seem to have no idea how out of touch and crazy they sound to many so-called ‘ordinary people’.
Division is the order of the day, between city and country, young and old and between many other defining characteristics of human being and that provides a ripe milieux for bullying.
What do we do with bullies?

Jez

I’ve just noticed you’ve used the word that these people are; bullies.

Excellent description.

Magnolia

What else do you call people who tell you what to think (Mr Clegg) and who make you afraid to utter what you are really thinking (Mr Cameron) and who reward only those who act in ways which accord with their wishes and viewpoint (the BBC)? The bully has to exert power and control and ultimately there is the threat or act of punishment/banishment/smearing for not complying.
Unlike Mr Clegg I loathe modern Britain, not because of any immigration or because of any working mums but because it is left wing and intolerant of my traditional right wing conservative viewpoint and because of the funny money.

Ninety Niner

s*x? You disdain bullying, and yet choose to censor free expression. you could have simply used the term “gender”. Or would that be “g*nd*r”?

the viceroy’s gin

This site’s censorship policy is responsible for that, lad. The Speccie teenagers are quite politically correct, and love censorship of all types.

the viceroy’s gin

…and for some strange reason, you went back and edited that post, lad. You added the last two sentences. What is it you’re trying to accomplish?

StephanieJCW

Mothers who work – how horrifying!

Mothers belong in the kitchen. Men of course are free to combine work and family.

nickwilde

Spare us the faux victim routine. In modern Britain, many women with children work and that is a great thing who is the 2010s is suggesting they should not. It is women who choose not to work who are berated and belittled, as if they are either socially useless or betraying the sisterhood.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

Sorry, how am I a bully for taking issue with those that wish to deny me equal rights?

transponder

What is an equal right? I suggest you think about that, mate.

This man was exercising his equal right to participate in a democratic campaign for marriage as the world has understood it since Western Civilization began. He did it, what’s more, as a private citizen. All within the law. You would agree to the denial of this man his livelihood on that basis, all because you want to appropriate the word ‘marriage’ to your partnership? I call that callous, illiberal, and intolerant, and highly dangerous to our free way of living.

And by the way, whatever you have it will never be marriage, any more than my dog will ever be a rabbit, though I strap bunny ears on her and a somber if not sober judge pronounces her ‘rabbit’.

No God But Truth.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

He was was an employee of a company. He acted in a way which public ally damaged the reputation of that company. He did so deliberately ( he could always have donated anonymously). The company sacked him, because they reckoned he was no longer a valuable asset.

Capitalism’s a bitch ain’t it?

transponder

No, I’d say you’re the bitch, Sam. And you can tell your friends and they can giggle over it.

Most of us are employees of a company. So what? It is your prejudice that makes his private action ‘damaging’ to the ‘reputation’ of the company. It does no such thing. He was acting within the law. You DO care about the law, don’t you?

Can you imagine the opposite scenario, Sam? I suggest you do. You are in favour of gay quote marriage. You support a campaign for said thing. You get sacked. You would not sue for wrongful dismissal? I sure as h-ll would. And so should Eich.

And not by the way: there is no such thing as ‘anonymous’ donation as you put it. One is required to give personal details, which the Left-wing Huffington Post — alone among media organizations I know of — makes a special effort to publicize so that Leftists can disciminate against those they don’t agree with.

Do you see the illiberalism at the heart of what you’re supporting? Really try to see it, because it’s glowing red like neon.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

“The law” didn’t sack him, the company did. And I have in fact worked in jobs where I had to be careful which views I expressed because I was a representative of my employer. I just interviewed for a role in which I would have been legally prevented from engaging in any party political campaigning. This isn’t that odd.

And I’m not a liberal, I’m a socialist.

transponder

Please don’t tell me next that you’re not a socialist, you’re an anarchist. The other person told me that (and he’s bisexual preferring women, and I suspect there may be a connection).

As for me, I’m a classical liberal to my fingertips, my clavicle, my sitting bones, and my occiput. I’m a capitalist even though in some ways I’m not very good at it.

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

I’m assuming as a liberal that you don’t think the state should be in the marriage business at all, a view I consider consistent if perhaps a tad utopian.

transponder

You missed the important qualifier, ‘classical’. It makes all the difference.

Kitty MLB

I wonder what someone elses sexuality,
and the ability for another to make a snide
and sly remark about it, has to do with,
you being a socialist, Sammy.

Colonel Mustard

“And I’m not a liberal, I’m a socialist.”

That says it all.

the viceroy’s gin

Yes, there is such a thing as anonymous donation.

transponder

Not in my experience, there isn’t. If you are led to think you need to give details — which they always ask for, no matter what the sum, as a matter of law they tell you — it’s public knowledge, as soon as Leftists start posting it for all to see with the click of a mouse. Name, address, and how much you gave. My experience with all political giving unless I refused to fill in the blanks because the donation was under $200. But firstly, it’s a good bet that Eich donated a good deal more than that, and secondly, the Huffington Post reported my giving even though it was under the amount that required disclosure.

Sorry that was so longwinded and boring.

the viceroy’s gin

This is more a custom in the US, as I understand, and perhaps not elsewhere. In fact, they just had a big court case which the lefties are in a spittle-flecked rage over, because the political money is being donated anonymously, and they the lefty fascists hate that.

Now, if you give to a political candidate, that is recorded and matched to you and available for public disclosure, as I understand. But political speech itself is protected as anonymous, unless the lefty fascists break the law and pierce that anonymity, which is what happened to this Mozilla guy. But as far as I know, you and I can donate to whichever causes we like, whether it’s the church of devil worshipping casino blackjack dealers, or whatever. That information isn’t available to the public (nor should it be).

And we can contribute to the church of homosexual marriage, if we want. That, too, isn’t to be public information, and shouldn’t be.

transponder

Good point. I’m about to write to the chair of the Republican National Committee, and c.c. my (Republican) Congressman on this issue. And the issue is protecting the secret ballot. I should be able to contribute to the party of my choice financially without that information being made easily available to any vindictive/ignorant opposing party member. I say this because both hubby and I are involved in fields that are dominated by the Left (publishing and even more, education). If your employer knows that you have given a donation to a non-Left cause or organization, that could torpedo your career. Yet we have the legal right to contribute, and the parties ask us all for our contributions.

In short, Lefties can give money with impunity because it scores points with their circle and because conservatives/classical liberals will see that as legal and as fair play (part of our democracy). But when conservatives actively support their own causes, the Leftists see that as evil and the supporter is fit for persecution of some kind. It’s a double standard that the Left is notorious for. And the true liberals of our society — Americans, but in the West generally I think — need to address this.

the viceroy’s gin

He did donate anonymously. You lefty fascists violated that anonymity, illegally.

John Partridge

What is the truth in marriage without god?

Without god who defines marriage but men?

If god has not declared to you what marriage is, how are you an authority of its truth above another man?

transponder

We make our society. And we can unmake it, which I’m afraid we’re in the process of doing. But there won’t be another Enlightenment for a very long time, and perhaps ever. I wouldn’t bet on it.

Civilization needs supports, needs a certain political and social infrastructure. To a certain extent, it’s a house of cards. You want to mess about with that?

John Partridge

Oh, I understand you now, “classical liberal” is an epithet you wear when you are offended.
When you’re on the offensive, you’re an authoritarian.

transponder

Typical of a Leftist to misread willfully everyone of slightly different opinion.

John Partridge

Your cognitive dissonance is astounding, to believe in responsible self governance and freedom, whilst rejecting the actions of consenting individuals and institutions, because it conflicts with an unchanging political and social infrastructure that you hold above liberty.

transponder

I don’t see how anyone can hold civilization itself above liberty! I yield to no one in my visceral need for liberty, but I know that it needs profound supports and doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

And still, you have willfully misread me, as already stated.

John Partridge

Ok so how does gay marriage, as the consenting act between 3 parties that conforms to the principles of liberty, weaken it’s supports?

the viceroy’s gin

How about 4 or 5 parties?

And what about the pets?

John Partridge

If they’re capable of informed consent why not.

the viceroy’s gin

…so you’ll decide on “informed consent”, and spin that as required?

And you’re jabbering about “liberty”, lad?

John Partridge

That would be the foundation of liberty, fud.

the viceroy’s gin

…so then, your decisions and spin are the “foundations of liberty”?

You have strange notions, lad.

John Partridge

Nah, informed consent is the foundation of liberty. Informed consent is the prerogative of the individual.

the viceroy’s gin

…so circling back around as appears to be your wont, you’ll decide on “informed consent” and spin that as required?

And you’re jabbering about “liberty”, lad?

John Partridge

It’s the one problem isn’t it. How do you prove who is capable of understanding something enough to make consenting decision on it, when deeming them incapable is a loss of liberty. Nothings perfect eh, got any better ideas?

the viceroy’s gin

…well, one good idea would be if muppets like you didn’t jabber foolishly that your idea “conforms to the principles of liberty”.

John Partridge

I’d be very grateful if you could explain how gay marriage doesn’t.

the viceroy’s gin

Let’s stick to the simple, lad, pointing out the falsities of your arguments. I don’t feel it productive delving into much else, as you don’t appear capable of that.

uberwest

I wouldn’t be so sure that all of the staff of the C of E support gay marriage . It seems like a policy imposed on the C of E by liberal lefty tw*ts.

John Partridge

“And still, you have willfully misread me, as already stated.”

Well you called me a leftist, so lets let bygones be bygones.

Kitty MLB

You are not a bully, Sammy. Its others who feel
they have a right to influence the rights of complete
strangers who are the bullies. They wish to
use their prejudices to bully you away…

Right Full Rudder

You’re a bully when you demand they lose their job for having a different opinion to you. And this is exactly why I’ve never had any respect for political activists. Scratch one and underneath you will usually find an ugly and vindictive human being.

John Partridge

So I take it you have zero respect for Eich also?

Jesus Actionfigure

Seems that choosing who one wants to do business with now makes one a “bully” – rather than a functioning member of a free market.

I guess laissez-faire has its limits after all…

Chris Bond

You miss the point. Most people do. We seem to think these spiteful nut jobs are winning and are pushing their agenda. This is wrong. They have won already, and are merely operating a mopping up operation to secure this. Forget the bullies. This whole issue is rooted in Gender Mainstreaming which is concocted by the EU, UN and University professionals. There is even documented reports where they talk quite freely of the need to use media professionals to disseminate cultural values, use school s to “educate” the new values and encourage business to be responsible (see mozilla, M&S etc with regard to economic persecution). Have a read of this, page 32 onwards for the actors including NGOs and pressure groups (special relevence to motzilla guy – make no mistake, this is not random, they are on active witch hunts), politicians, supergovernmental organisations and media- http://www.unhcr.org/3c160b06a.pdf

Frank

I agree, but wouldn’t worry. The Mozilla thing happened in America, so he will probably get armed up with lawyers and come back to Mozilla to “tear them a new one” as we say nowadays.

Jambo25

I certainly hope so. I hope he bankrupts the scumbags,

Samuel Kaine Wheeler

You hope a charity committed to the open and free development of software for everyone goes bankrupt?

Jambo25

Yes. The organisation has shown itself to have an edge of moral authoritarianism.

Man in Black

A friend of mine from the UK has just had his blog censored by Mozilla.

If you try and access his blog using Firefox, the following message appears instead :

Firefox is blocked for this site

Due to Mozilla’s policy of intolerance towards those who hold “the wrong views” we have decided to block Firefox from this site.